The Tenafly real estate market doesn’t need any more price reductions. The market is hotter than hot and we’re entitled to higher prices.

Yesterday I bumped into an agent at Cafe Angelique in Tenafly, and she like some of the other agents in the area are still mad at me for arguing against further price reductions for Tenafly homes. They still believe that lower prices increase your chances of selling your home. And to that I say bull!

It’s time that someone stands up for what’s right for buyers and sellers. They need an advocate

Home sales in Tenafly for 2011 will most likely surpass 2007…considered by Realtors to be a BOOM year.

We already beat out 2006.

So why push price reductions?

Tenafly: single family homes sales comparison

Here are the facts right from the njmls database:

the number of home sold in Tenafly as of 11/30/11 have increased by 30% from the same time period in 2010. That’s great news!

the dollar volume for all the homes sold, increased by an INCREDIBLE 48%! Tell me that’s not great frik’n news!….a $48 million increase!!

the average sales price has increased by 13%…a $120k increase per/home…more great news

Hello! This is an incredible market, and it can’t get any better than this until the agents stop cutting price.

Tenafly is an oasis

It’s time to start raising price!

sorry for the fast cut and paste job

All throughout the country people are looking for a sign of a turnaround…and we are living it right here in Tenafly.

Why aren’t Realtors promoting the success of Tenafly? The don’t want fewer sales…they want more sales, even if it means lowering values.

The numbers don’t get any better than this. This is a banner year and it’s news that Realtors and brokers should be promoting the daylights out of. This is BIG TIME news!

The Realtors expectations that Tenafly home owners should continue to lower their prices is an insane proposition, and more importantly it’s destructive to sellers and to all homeowners in Tenafly.

Artificially lower the value of our homes…so they can potentially sell more homes? But there’s no proof that lower prices equates to more sales in Tenafly…especially given the fact that Tenafly is the highest priced town in sales dollars…see Town Sales Comparison chart

The area doesn’t need more home sales….147 homes sold through November 2011 is an incredible number of sales compared to past years.

Tenafly is beating out the BOOM years!

It’s insane to push lower prices!!

Realtors need to forget what happened in the boom years. Those days are long gone and my generation will most likely never see the market return to that volume of sales and pricing in our lifetime. Tenafly will not reach 214 home sales as it did in 2004…and it doesn’t have to for it to be considered a smashing market.

What’s good for the brokerage community isn’t good for buyers and sellers:

Realtors only care about the volume of homes sold…the higher the volume the more commissions that are paid to a larger group of agents

they don’t care what a home sells for…because the price paid for one home, has an almost negligible effect for that one commission

Let’s be fair to Realtors…there is a very small percentage of homes that are probably grossly over priced. However, if that’s the case, then it’s the agents fault for listing something that they know WILL NOT SELL…just so they can have the listing, while expecting over time to wear down the seller and keep pushing price reductions until the home finally sells. Agents fail all homeowners buy playing that game. That’s exactly what is happening in the top end of the market in Alpine.

This is a common and horrible practice by agents, because it makes potential buyers believe that EVERY home is grossly over priced. No one is forcing agents to take a listing…they have the power to say no.

Other than Realtors, what business in their right mind would try selling products that they know won’t sell because they’re over priced? No smart business person would do that.

In short, the numbers tell a story of revival and a return to normalcy for one covey lucky local market.

Tenafly is hot! and the demand for Tenafly is hotter.

Buyers will gladly pay a premium to be in a stable and increasing market, because they feel that their investment is safe. That’s exactly what happened in the BOOM years

Just look at what’s happening in Manhattan…stability in most markets, and increasing sales #’s and dollar volume in most markets.

Check out the numbers in these charts…overwhelmingly buyers prefer to live in Tenafly, even though they can easily purchase a less expensive home in a neighboring town, but they choose NOT to.

That is a sign of a great market!

Run from everyone who tells you that it’s all about price. Because it’s not!

Tell us what you think

PS…if you need more proof of how vibrant the market is in Tenafkly, look no further than all of the new homes that are being built either as spec homes or homes being built by the purchaser. There’s probably 10+ homes that are being built or were built in that past year that range in value from $2-$4 milliion.